Firstly, the very old quilt, which I found at the car boot sale on Sunday and fell in love with. I am not very good at dating from the patterns used, but I would hazard a guess at it being a hundred years old. It has been loved and used and washed to death, and the shabby in shabby-chic is an understatement. I love it (which is just as well, as I may end up stuck with it!) but it is SO soft and comforting. I will try and get a photo of it laid out so you can see it in its entirety. A little piece of social history anyway.
Yesterday I went to see my dear friend A, who I was an Uni with (we were both mature students), but who is sadly now terminally ill. I always get together a basket of goodies for her - something home-baked (often biscuits, but this time Apple and Cinnamon Snickerdoodles), a little jar of home-made jam (Bramble Jelly this time), a magazine with good countryside photos in, a little piece of china, just small things to cheer her up and make it feel like it's her birthday every time I visit. I also took her an Amarylis yesterday, so she has something to look forward to when it flowers in a few weeks' time, and a finished tablecloth which she had started embroidering and I offered to complete for her.
I was late getting to her as I drove up over the lanes past Horeb to get to a garage for fuel and that added half an hour to the journey (she lives about an hour away, in the foothills of the Cambrian Mountains.) I did stop for just a minute to take a few swift photos of the scenery a couple of miles from her cottage.
It was a damp grey misty day. These sheep were hopeful I had come to feed them!
I love the drive to A's, although the lane gets narrower and narrower, the closer I get to her! and I always hope I shan't meet something coming the other way.
I love the way the moss colonizes the banks, and along this stretch the roots of the Beech trees writhe and bury themselves in the stone walls, like arthritic fingers.
It was a lovely day - we talked and talked - and she showed me some old family photos and I took a couple of names to research for her as she didn't know what became of them. One who she thought might have died as a child, as never any mention of her, survived till her 70s and married and had three daughters, so I shall try to trace them forward today.
It is very hard when you are made aware of your own mortality, and I know my friend isn't ready to go yet. I only hope I can help her through her final months and she has happy memories to see her through. We have had some lovely outings this summer, and next time I shall get some photos I took run off in town, so she can relive those memories for a while longer yet.
